Ernie seemed eager to fill a spot in the camp roster since a handful of students had quit after the boiler room explosion. But he eyed Barnes suspiciously.
“You sure you weren’t let back a couple times?” he asked. “You seem just a tad old, even for a transferring senior.”
“What kind of discouraging remark is that?” Barnes shot back. “How do you know I ain’t some disadvantaged youth? We got lousy schools in rural Michigan …”
“Okay, okay,” said Ernie. “It’s almost nine o’clock. Your first workshop is Jazz Lab—you can find the band room by following the noise; they’re already warming up.”
Ernie was greeted by the students in Jazz Lab, Eddy Pershing and Aaron and Paul Walker among them. “What is that thing?” asked Paul, who was sliding his mouthpiece onto the neck of his alto saxophone.
Barnes blew dust off the old oboe case and wrestled with the latches to open it. He hadn’t played it since middle school, and he was already a couple years out of Western Regional University in Ypsilanti. “It’s an oboe,” he explained. “I just hope I have reeds.”
“You’re kidding,” said Aaron, Paul’s older brother. “That’s not a jazz instrument. Want us to scrounge you up bass clarinet, at least?”
Barnes shook his head; he’d never played any of the related clarinet family. “I’ll make do.”
Band director Neal H. Richards took the podium, his appearance modestly improved from where it had started in the beginning of the week. Instead of the rumpled leisure suit and unshaven jowls, he sported a light turtleneck and denim vest, and was clean-shaven except for where he left stubble to for a goatee. He’d even gotten a haircut; gone were the greased-back locks—he now sported a blow-dried look. Gold chains around his neck and assorted rings on his fingers were offset by dark socks in leather sandals. In all, he looked like a middle-aged man reborn as disco hipster.
“Let’s get started, shall we?” said Neal, tapping his new conductor’s baton on the music stand. “Let me just say this has been a great first week of summer camp. I want to thank , Aryaman—Mr. Ronith—Munro—for all his help this past week”—Munro nodded as he plugged his guitar into its amp in the back row of the band—“We couldn’t have come this far without him. Now, let’s run through a few charts so you know what to practice over the weekend; a week from today, we’ll give the folks one hell of a show for our final concert.”
Barnes found the oboe utterly unresponsive, its dried out pads failing to cover the holes, its key springs rusty, and the reeds unable to produce a sound. It didn’t matter, he told himself; everyone was cutting him a break as the new kid, and he was just getting the lay of the land. Besides, everyone in the jazz lab was trading fours with Munro, who, holding back on the guitar, was still blowing everyone away with smooth, inventive, pyrotechnical improvisations. Neal even broke out the baritone saxophone and cut a sixteen-bar solo worthy of a laid-back West Coast Blue Note album.
At ten o’clock, Barnes moved down the hall to where Jamaica Jordyn was leading the crew of muralists. Much of the wall leading to the girl’s locker room was already outlined in pencil with a mix of portraits of famous Stevenson alumni and local historical events. Barnes was put on duty filling in areas with flat color, while the more experiences campers, by now tutored in the art of chiaroscuro, accentuated with highlights and shadowing.
Barnes was quickly taken by a wholesome, blonde girl named Beth Loman, a friendly student from Redford Union, who was particularly adept at adding acrylic depth to the flat areas of color Barnes laid down. By the end of the hour, he was completely smitten with a high school crush.
“I’ve got to go,” said Beth, smiling as she washed out her brushes in the art room sink. “I’m going up north this weekend with my parents, camping.” She bounded off, speckled with paint.
At eleven, Barnes moved to the craft room next door to the art room, where students were putting the finishing touches on clay pots before setting them on drying racks. “We’ll let these dry a few weeks, and your regular instructor will throw them into the kiln before September,” said Hoskins, the androgynous visiting artist. “Next week, we’ll pound out some jewelry—and maybe fire up the blow torch for some large-scale metal sculpture.”
“Oh, cool!” said Ethel Rosenstein, the wavy-haired Jewish girl with a worldly, intellectual streak. “Hey, Barnes,” she whispered. “You want smoke a joint in the woods before lunch?”
“Uh, sure,” he replied.
From the wooded patch that ran behind the high school to the junior high school, one could see Stevenson’s football field, tennis courts, and new boiler room, currently under construction.
“Do you know anything about how that exploded?” asked Barnes.
Ethel shrugged her shoulders as she held a long drag in her lungs. She let it out. “I heard so kids talk about a gun going off before the explosion. But I don’t know how they could have known; nobody was around when it happened.”
“Yeah, that weird gun thing,” said Barnes, taking the roach clip from Ethel, who was sitting on a chunk of discarded cement. “What are the kids saying about that?”
“I dunno, all kinds of rumors. I don’t particularly find decaying infrastructure all that fascinating. I’m more into poetry and theater.”
“I heard it described as a ray gun,” said Barnes.
“One of the kids described the instructor in shop using a weird tool that looked like a ray gun,” said Ethel.
“Shop, huh? Darn; I won’t get to shop class until Monday. We only go until one this afternoon.”
“Had your heart set on shop class, huh?” asked Ethel.
Barnes took another drag, held it in, passed the joint back to her. After exhaling, he said, “These visiting artists seem exceptionally talented for art camp instructors,” said Barnes. “Isn’t that rather unusual?”
“Yeah, it’s pretty cool, huh? The kids wish they would stay around and be their regular instructors year-round.”
“The kids? How about you?”
“Oh, I’m not a student here,” said Ethel. “I used to be. I’m at Walled Lake Zion Teacher’s College; I’m an intern here, helping out during the camp.”
“I see,” said Barnes. “Me too. I mean, I’m going to Warren Woodward,” he lied.
“You looked older,” said Ethel. “I wouldn’t have brought you back here if I thought you were underage—I’d be breaking laws in about twenty-six states. So, do you want to fool around before going inside?”
Barnes missed lunch completely, but hadn’t brought a brown bag anyway; now, walking the halls, which he could barely do under the circumstances, he found the candy machine by the front entrance. He had the munchies something awful, and started inserting coins like crazy.
“How are things going?” asked Ernie, who was patrolling the halls.
“Great!” said Barnes, giving him a thumbs up. “Fitting right in!” “I knew you would,” said Ernie.
After Barnes retrieved four candy bars from the tray below, he realized, “Oh, shit! I left my oboe case in the woods!”
When he finally arrived for theater workshop, Merino was leading the students in relaxation exercises in a circle on the stage. “We need to divest our instruments of negative energy so they we can respond spontaneously to the moment,” said the tautly muscled black man. “The theater, above all, is about truth.”
Ethel, who was already in a circle with the other campers, cast a knowing glance at Barnes, who dropped his oboe case on a seat in the front row and hopped up onto the stage. “I already divested your instrument of negative energy, didn’t I?” she whispered, wiping the back of her hand lasciviously over her mouth and chin.
The students stood with their legs apart, bent at the waist, their arms dangling. “Now, shake out all that energy,” said Merino. The students shook their bodies so their torsos and arms flapped around limp like the Scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz.
Barnes, already buzzed, became even more dizzy and lightheaded.
Next, the students lay on their backs, then closed their eyes.
“Now, don’t go to sleep,” Merino intoned. “Just try to clear your mind of all ideas. If a thought intrudes, just gently push it away. Emptiness … emptiness …
Next, a series of students demonstrated the emotional memory exercises they had mastered all week, reliving the death of their grandmothers, dogs, favorite literary characters. Many broke into tears.
A huge thunderclap shook the building.
“Well, I guess that’s the hit that ended the ballgame,” said Merino. “Memorize your scripts over the weekend and we’ll begin running scenes on Monday.”
A Yellow Cab was waiting for Barnes as he left the building at one, Ethel giving him a French kiss goodbye for good measure. The skies were already darkening and a summer rain was about to begin. Barnes instructed the driver to stop at a music store on Middlebelt so he could buy reeds and Bates Hamburgers to grab a bag of sliders, before returning to downtown Detroit; it was a downpour before the cab got onto the freeway just before rush hour.
In the Day offices, John Bradford looked up from his desk at his soggy copyboy, who presented him with receipts for the cab, oboe reeds, and lunch.
“Whew,” said John, sizing up the tab. “You had yourself a day. What did you learn? Anything?”
“Not much,” said Barnes. “But I didn’t get to shop class; I’ll check that out on Monday.”
“You think the ray gun is connected to shop class?”
“I dunno. But all the visiting artists there are crazy talented, like they were from outer space. Except the theater guy—he was just weird. Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if they all had pointy ears.”
“All artists are from outer space,” said John. “Just ask my little brother.”
“Can I go home now?” asked Barnes, images of Beth and Ethel still swirling in his brain. “I gotta go home and practice my oboe.”
Next: Up North
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